If the Leader’s Quadrant in Gartner’s Multichannel Campaign Management Magic Quadrant (MCCM) is unchanged since last year, there are still some very impressive offerings in the other quadrants.

Last week we looked at the market generally and saw that it is dominated by established vendors who are offering all-round MCCM platforms, and new entrants that tend to offer specific, targeted functionality often in the cloud.

While only established vendors made it into the Leader’s quadrant, the criteria that need to be met for inclusion in any of the quadrants means that those that are listed come with a strong business plan and roadmap.

In fact, if the financial survival of vendors is considered one of the core elements it is not the only important one. Others include:

The ability to create, execute and manage multichannel campaigns

Proven campaign planning, tracking and reporting

A user interface suitable for marketing users

Basic campaign management functionality

Vendors must also have at least 30 customers that are using their campaign management applications as well as 15 client wins in the past year with eight accessible client references. They also need to have at least US$ 15 million in revenues.

MCCM Challengers

These are vendors that have a developing understanding of campaign management and see it as a way of increasing revenues and retaining customers in their installed bases. They see MCCM as complementary to their core tools.

There was only one vendor in the Challengers quadrant: SAP. It made it in on the basis of its integrated MCCM application.

SAP Strengths

Viability: It grew its customer base for the MCCM offering by 38% last year.

Capabilities: Usability improvements gave marketers better functionality for running more campaigns and made it more feasible for running real-time targeted customer engagement campaigns through any channel and any device.

Road map: SAP says it will expand its predictive capabilities this year and will enhance SAP Jam for stakeholder integration and decision making.

Cautions: Works best for those looking for holistic views of the customer process that includes service, sales, billing, planning and budgeting interactions. Its reference customers say SAP needs to continue developing its UI.

Visionaries

These are vendors that excel in advanced or emerging areas and have a strong vision of MCCM now and where it is going in the future. They demonstrate innovative capabilities in one or more MCCM functionalities. There are 5 vendors in this category this year. In alphabetical order they are:

Adobe

Strengths: It offers both advanced and basic capabilities, while its Marketing Cloud provides analytics for real-time segmentation. It redefined its digital marketing strategy last year to consolidate multiple offerings into Marketing Cloud. It also simplified its pricing, SKUs and contracts.

Cautions: It still needs to integrate with offline campaign management functions while references cited the need to improve the interface.

Strengths: It reported revenues of US$ 294 million last year and has had considerable success expanding its global reach. It bought Pardot for B2B lead management and iGoDigital for Web personalization.

Cautions: References evaluate it against other email providers and not MCCM vendors. It needs to accelerate investment in online/offline real-time analytics.

Neolane

Neolane continues to develop its share in B2C and B2B MCCM. Gartner recommends that you consider Neolane when looking for a SaaS solution for Web, email and social marketing.

Strengths: It reported revenues of US$ 58 million and year-on-year growth of 40%, focusing on North America, Europe and Asia/Pacific. Product-wise it enhanced decisioning to engage with anonymous mobile push notifications, in-app personalization and relocation.

Cautions: Several references said product complexity was an issue around setting up workflows. It also needs to accelerate its digital marketing roadmap.

Strengths: It achieved revenues of US$ 163 million last years with channels for email mobile, social, display and Web in 2012. Its road map includes faster disaster recovery by replication arcos data centers.

Cautions: Gartner estimates that more than 70% of its revenues come from email marketing despite the growing breath of its digital offerings. References also said they would like more investment in analytics.

Sitecore

Sitecore continues to shift its focus from traditional web content management to digital marketing for marketing organizations. Gartner says it should be considered for web campaign management.

Strengths: Gartner estimates that 40% of Sitecore's revenues come from MCCM and most of that in the US, the UK and Denmark, in that order. It manages content and can execute campaigns for websites Released in 2012, Sitecore CMS v.6.6 adds a software development kit (SDK) for native applications supporting Apple's iOS platform (note Sitecore is now on v7).

Cautions: References say that despite many out-of-the-box features, complex environments require a great deal of customization. Its .NET strengths make it less attractive for clients that don’t use .NET.

Niche Players

The final quadrant is for Niche players who, generally speaking, focus on a narrow area of MCCM. They also tend to lack a broader set of campaign management abilities. Interestingly, this is the largest quadrant with seven different vendors in it. Taking a brief look at them, in alphabetic order they are:

ClickSquared

Continues in 2012 to move from service-based to product-based MCCM

Strengths: ClickSquared provides in-database analytics scoring and other easy-to-use accessible functions. This year its focus is on expansion into marketing resource management.

Cautions: Its visibility in the MCCM market is low with revenues and growth momentum slowing over the year.

Cautions: References noted the need for Infor to keep investing in the product and to produce new features. References also said the UI is outdated.

Marketo

Marketo continues to grow its presence in the market with continued expansion into enterprise accounts.

Strengths: Marketo's revenue grew 80% last year with 70% growth in large enterprises. It upgraded and enhanced its Program Exchange as part of its Marketing Nation, a means of creating a network to share Market programs.

Cautions: References reported that its customer service, while good, can be slow arriving. Despite efforts it has still to become profitable.

Oracle (Eloqua)

This provides SaaS offerings for lead management in the B2B space with major industry segments including high tech and financial services.

Strengths: Oracle Eloquareported 34% growth in 2012 and was bought by Oracle earlier this year. Over the course of this year, it will focus on extending it vertical breath. It will also be integrated with other Oracle offerings.

Cautions: References said they needed more support for very complex campaigns and need more multichannel capabilities. The Oracle buy has raised some concerns about its road map.

Pitney Bowes Software

Offering inbound and outbound campaign management for B2C financial services, Pitney Bowes should be considered for those managing large number of customers and multiple channels.

Strengths: Over the year it released major new versions of Portrait Dialogue and Portrait Interaction Optimizer. Upgrades this year will include support for deeper customer understanding.

Cautions: Gartner believes that Pitney revenues have remained flat from last year. References also cite integration problems across its product range.

SDL

SDL provides campaign management execution on top of a high-performing analytics engine.

Strengths: SDL is a large, profitable global vendor of information management systems and reported 62 new customers last year. Plans for 2013 include rollouts of SDL Intelligent Marketing Suite.

Cautions: References mention needing a deep knowledge of the various SDM tools. Several references say they have to wait for support until the UK “comes online”.

Selligent

Focusing on the retail and financial services Selligent should be considered for B2C deployments.

Strengths: It is profitable with revenue from campaign management software increasing 35% year over year. This year it will debut its Customer Intelligence module and offer visual data exploration.

Cautions: It does not support all advanced campaign functions like predictive analytics and real-time offers. References report inconsistent support experiences.

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